No matter how long you’ve been implementing a LinkedIn marketing plan, it’s useful to go back to the drawing board every few months to see what’s working and what needs changing.
I’ve heard from many freelance writers who believed they were doing everything right on LinkedIn and yet were still not seeing results.
For instance, a health writer wanted to land gigs with health publications and businesses on LinkedIn. She posted regularly, commented under ideal prospects’ posts, and even sent cold pitches through LinkedIn InMails.
She got no responses, and that frustrated her. When we examined her LinkedIn marketing plan, a loophole emerged. These prospects would visit her profile but not take action.
It became clear why — her LinkedIn profile was all about her coaching services for other freelance writers (oops!). So when prospects landed on her profile, there was nothing there for them.
After reworking her LinkedIn profile, she was able to refocus on high-paying clients while still marketing her coaching business sparingly in her content.
Not seeing results isn’t the only reason to examine and tweak your LinkedIn marketing plan. Here are several more…
10 Questions to Examine your LinkedIn Marketing Plan
1. Do you have an All-Star LinkedIn profile?
As per LinkedIn, users with All-Star profiles are 40 times more likely to land opportunities. This means more job offers, new prospects, and fresh connections to enrich your network.
LinkedIn doesn’t show an All-Star profile status on a complete profile. However, it shows your profile strength in a “Suggested for you” box under the introduction card, along with recommendations to reach All-Star status. So, if your profile is complete, you may not see the “Suggested for you” box.
Here’s what it takes to reach All-Star status on your LinkedIn profile:
- A current, clean, and on-brand profile picture.
- A headline that summarizes what you do, for whom, and your results.
- At least one current and two prior experiences listed under the Experience section.
- Five or more skills listed under the Skills section.
- A Summary or bio that expands on your headline.
- Industry and Location details.
- At least one institution under Education.
- Fifty or more connections in your network.
2. Can your ideal clients identify themselves on your profile?
To attract your ideal prospects and convert them into paying clients, it’s important to explicitly mention the identifiers your ideal clients use.
The right keywords could be different for everyone. Are your ideal clients marketing managers, content executives, or content managers? Which industry do they work in?
Sprinkle these keywords throughout your profile. This way, your prospects will be sure you’re the right person for them, and you’ll get highly qualified leads.
3. Does your profile show your credibility/expertise?
What do your ideal clients need to know about you before contacting you? Mostly, writing clients want to see your portfolio, past clients, and results.
Now, does your profile convey that information clearly and powerfully? Make sure you link your portfolio at the top of your profile. You could add relevant writing samples to the Featured section.
Ask current and past clients to write you a LinkedIn recommendation. Finally, ensure your About/Summary section mentions your services, process, ideal client definition, names of past clients and results you’ve helped them achieve.
4. How will prospects find you on LinkedIn — inbound/outbound?
I’ve worked with freelance writers who had a complete LinkedIn profile but sat on it for too long, waiting for clients to discover them miraculously.
Let’s actively contribute to the cause, okay? If you want to land inbound clients, publish content that gets you in front of them. And, to land outbound clients, actively reach out to prospects.
Outbound is usually the way to land clients in the short term, while inbound marketing is a long-term strategy. The key is to get started on both and lay down what actions you will perform every day, week, and month.
5. What action will your prospects take on your profile?
Once your ideal clients discover you through outbound/inbound marketing and know/trust you through your profile/content, what action should they take? Do you want them to book a call with you or drop you a message/email?
Include your call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your Summary, in your header image, and as a link in the Featured section (e.g., a link to book a call). CTAs make it easy for prospects to take action.
A profile without a call-to-action might leave prospects hanging. Think of your profile as a conversion funnel or a website.
6. What does your LinkedIn profile/content say about your business?
There’s explicit and implicit information in your profile and content. For instance, my post here tells you explicitly that I like to be left alone to do my work after the initial discovery (goodbye, micromanagers!).
The implicit message is that I don’t need hand-holding from my clients and am reliable and experienced to go off of available information.
Try this — go through your content and profile with the eyes of a third party and objectively assess the implicit messages. Better yet, swap this task with another freelance writer, so you benefit from each other’s unbiased perspective.
7. What are your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) on LinkedIn?
The real KPIs that matter on LinkedIn are your search appearances, profile views, and incoming leads. The quality and quantity of these metrics determine the health of your LinkedIn marketing.
What would you like to improve about their quality and quantity? What do your KPIs tell you about your LinkedIn marketing plan?
For instance, appearing in search results for irrelevant keywords means you’re not using relevant keywords on your profile. Or, low profile views mean you’re not getting in front of enough people.
8. Are you satisfied with your LinkedIn activity? If not, what needs to change?
I’ll speak for myself: time and again, I get a nagging feeling I could be doing more LinkedIn marketing to move my business forward. That feeling of dissatisfaction tells me I’m expecting certain results from LinkedIn and falling short.
So I go back to the drawing board and see where I want to put more effort. Do I have the capacity to create videos or carousel posts? Do I want to post more often? Do I want to do more cold outreach?
9. Are you following a sustainable LinkedIn marketing strategy?
A sustainable LinkedIn marketing plan is the only one that’ll work for you. We can sometimes overestimate our capacity, drive to exhaustion, and find ourselves back at square one, wondering how we fell off the wagon.
A sustainable marketing plan is one you can keep up on those days, you know, when you’re under the weather, not feeling your mojo, and need to take a break.
A sustainable LinkedIn marketing plan will sustain itself through the lows. Do you feel burnt out from LinkedIn marketing? If so, it’s time to make it sustainable.
10. Do you enjoy LinkedIn?
One of my favorite signs of a good LinkedIn marketing plan is that you enjoy it. LinkedIn marketing might look like a regular business to-do but is actually fun once you build a community, have genuine conversations, and see results for your business.
What do you need to do more/less of to enjoy LinkedIn marketing?
Use these questions to assess your LinkedIn marketing plan. Work through each and get actionable steps to make improvements. Getting good results from an activity you enjoy will give you the motivation to keep at it…and fill up that pipeline.
